Coming Soon to the Oscar Telecast: Movie Commercials

For years, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has had a rule against showing TV commercials for movies during the Oscar show itself. This was an attempt to keep the ceremony as pure as possible. It was also to avoid problems -- people might smell conspiracy if, for example, the studio that bought the most ad time during the show also happened to win the most Oscars.

But now, according to Variety, the Academy has voted to change the rule and start allowing movie ads during the show, effective with next February's telecast. This could be huge in terms of building excitement for new films. The Oscars' massive worldwide audience is obviously the right crowd to show movie ads to, and the studios will undoubtedly roll out their best stuff to capitalize on it. The Oscar show doesn't draw as many viewers as the Super Bowl (currently the most sought-after place to debut a highly anticipated new trailer), but at least the studios can count on everyone in the Oscar audience being a movie fan. That's not necessarily the case with the Super Bowl.

Another reason to be excited about this is a stipulation the Academy has made: They're allowing brand-new, not-yet-aired commercials only. What's more, each distributor is only allowed one. It's not clear whether that's one commercial that can air multiple times during the show, or one shot, period. But either way, it means the studios will have to carefully select the ONE upcoming film that they most want to promote, and then produce the best possible commercial for it. And that's good news for the movie fans watching the show.